by Liz Walter
All students of English need to learn phrasal verbs! A phrasal verb is a verb and a particle (e.g. up, off, over) used together. Phrasal verbs may seem difficult, but you probably know some already:

It is often impossible to guess the meaning of a phrasal verb from the meaning of the verb. For example, if you give up smoking, you stop smoking, and if you carry on doing something, you continue to do it. You have to learn the meaning of these phrasal verbs in just the same way as you do with a single verb.

You’ve got to follow this Tip to make you sound like a native speaker of English.

Some verbs need to have an object after the verb. If they don’t have an object, the sentence is grammatically incorrect. To native ears such a sentence will sound strange. They’ll probably ask you: “Come again?”

The object is the person or thing that an action is done to.

For instance, you can say: 1 My father told me to buy insurance for that trip.

And not: 2 My father told to buy insurance for that trip.

“Me” is the object here (in the first sentence). You always need to tell someone.

So that’s why the second sentence is wrong.

Non-native speakers make lots of mistakes with this, so read this carefully.

“Weird Al” Yankovics makes parodies of many popular songs. This new song makes fun of people who use incorrect grammar, especially in emails or text messages. You’ll have to stop the video a few times to catch everything that he says.

by Liz Walter
It’s easy to use very basic verbs such as get, start, have or make, but a great way of improving your English is to learn more interesting verbs that go with particular nouns. For example, while it’s fine to say get attention or do research, your English will sound much better if you can say attractattention or carry outresearch.

Sometimes it’s worth learning the verb and noun combination as a phrase because it is so common that it would sound strange to use a different verb. For instance, we commit a crime (never ‘do’), telllies or jokes (never ‘say’), and pluck up courage (not ‘get’). And while it’s possible to ‘give’ attention, details or compliments, it’s much more common and natural to payattention, go into detailsand pay someone a compliment.